ABSTRACT
Most often, historians of Mexico's turbulent Independence Period have sought to establish a coherent chronology to explain eleven years of labyrinthine complexity. A few historians such as Carlos Maria de Bustamante drew attention to the remaining insurgent leaders who rejected royalist amnesties. However, rebel chieftains left in the field from 1817 to 1821, such as Vicente Guerrero and Guadalupe Victoria, appeared to represent little more than anarchic or reactionary elements of limited importance. This chapter reconsiders many of these notions about the independence decade. Often, modern historians have viewed the Mexican Independence Period as if through a telescope from a great distance rather than close up through the lens of a magnifying glass. During much of 1820, the commanders of military districts throughout New Spain reported what turned out to be a deceptive calm. In many respects, the new insurrection in the Apan commandancy was a war of minds and words rather than of bullets.
